Sunday, June 17, 2012

We were the first English-language China blog to write about the story of the 27-year-old in Shaanxi who was forced to abort at seven months. It broke on the same day that RFH took the opportunity to joke about the gaokao: real questions were uncovered, and they were ridiculous. Also, Louis CK has left the building. Here's our review by RFH.

Chengguan have had a bad week. Kids went "clockwork orange" on them, as Jeremiah Jenne tweeted on Twitter, referring to this story about a chengguan being overwhelmed by a mob of middle school students. That same day, we wrote about poor Josh Garcia, chengguan tool. And here's a chengguan truck on fire. If only chengguan were caught on tape doing what this foreigner in Chengdu did -- directing traffic to let an ambulance through -- maybe their reputation would improve. By the way, where were the chengguan when someone from the US embassy got assaulted outside Elements nightclub in Beijing?

Just as we were talking about men rescuing toddlers from balconies, a three-year-old in Shenzhen died after falling from her fourth-story balcony. And here's a deputy police chief in Yunnan possibly intentionally wrecking someone. Tom Grundy of Hong Wrong, which we've linked to in our East is Read column, tried to arrest Tony Blair in Hong Kong. And The Good Doctor reviewed The Medullary Paralysis show in Beijing -- stolen, one might say, by its as-yet-unidentified opening act.

The weather's been somewhere between very good and spectacular this week in Beijing. Go outside and enjoy yourself. We'll still be here when you come back.

The Huffington Post, Business Insider and Bloomberg TV did shitty journalism this week. RFH wrote about Eva Cohen's fishy guest post over at Foreign Policy (the picture gave us the opportunity to quote Shaft). We ranted about Chinese officials telling the US to stop monitoring Beijing's air, and this China Daily story that glorifies a Sanlitun cop for all the wrong reasons.

A bus driver in Hangzhou who was fatally wounded by debris but continued to do his job has been declared a hero. Bizarrely, a bus in Beijing did unspeakable things to a police car, leaving one dead. The activist Li Wangwang was found dead in a hospital room, and his friends and family think foul play was involved (authorities say it was suicide).

Louis CK performed in Beijing tonight. Sorry if you missed out on tickets -- we gave you a one- or two-hour window to buy. Predictably, they sold out fast. If you were at the show, I'd love to hear about how it was -- drop me a note at tao@beijingcream.com. Thank you for reading.

On Friday evening, Kris Pickett took a video of a protester in Xidan being pushed off a pedestrian bridge onto a bouncy tarp, then taken away by police. Another fight between American and Chinese basketball teams broke out that same night, while a white guy spat in the face of a Chinese man in Chengdu. Earlier in the week, a Shandong college cafeteria served its students whale meat without their knowledge. A 12-year-old from the same province has earned himself the nickname "China's Messi," and here's a 70-year-old badass in Yunnan who tosses petrol bombs at those who try to evict him. If you need lighter news, try this chicken-raping dog GIF.

Yang Rui says he called Melissa Chan a "shrew," not bitch, and Chen Guangcheng is in New York. Finally, we'd like to remind everyone that nature can be a bitch sometimes, always calling at the least convenient time.

The news outlets have been so consumed by Chen that they've totally forgotten about Bo. Just this week, Bo Guagua made his first public statement in the Harvard Crimson, but all we heard was Oxford, Oxford, Oxford (there's a great comment at the end of that post). Then we photoshopped his head onto Barack Obama's body.

BJC uncovered video of another pedestrian falling through the sidewalk in China, which was immediately copied by traditional media like the Telegraph and reposted under their name. American Mike Sui imitated a bunch of people in this video, which is raking up views by the thousands. Leehom Wang sang "As Time Goes By" at the opening ceremony of the Beijing International Film Festival, but he flubbed a key line.

We upset some folks by suggesting Time Out's Food Awards are upscale... though I suspect the offending line, written by reader E, must have been, "I’m surprised that Time Out, a British-owned publication, is so interested in blowing their literary loads all over a bunch of French place"). Natsun, the friend of Jackson, the subject of a controversial "Meet an Expat" column last week, wrote a formal response. A slackline-walker crossed a canyon in Hebei, while a wingsuit-flier glided over Hunan's Highway to Hell. Here's a homemade electric car built on a farm on the outskirts of Beijing, a city that, in case you've forgotten, is hosting the China Auto Show.

And finally, here, again, is Victoria Beckham with Harper Seven at Sanlitun's Opposite Hotel -- a story still without redeeming value.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

BJC's most-commented post so far was Tuesday's "A Story About Journalism," in which I wrote about how a small Associated Press editing mistake led to a whole lot of misunderstanding and anger half a world away. This came a day after RFH's excellent Bo Xilai rumor-roundup, which came on the heels of our inaugural "Meet an Expat" column about a Tianjin foreigner who gave up his American citizenship so he could stay in this country with his Chinese wife and son. (If you haven't seen it, Jackson has posted a long reply on the post.)

There was a soccer skirmish in Qingdao earlier this week, and hopefully someone cares. This man is the best auto sports fan I've ever seen. This is the best dancer on Wangfujing, especially accompanied by that awesome music. This is the most crowded subway ever, in Japan. And this might be the best homemade Iron Man suit you'll see in China.

By the way, Lola coined the term "frivolititties" this week. If you ever see that word elsewhere, go to this post and tell us about it.

A lot of sensible websites got trolled by a fake quote, and we're still waiting for them to issue corrections. Here are pictures of Beijing emptied out. And this website has a new No. 2 post in terms of all-time views (will it catch No. 1?): meet Purple Panda!

Jason Chu is the latest to join our "Chillax" feature with the video for "City of the North," part of his Goodbye, Beijing EP. We relived the Ducks' championship two weeks ago with a collection of videos, and let ourselves get taken back to our Nintendo-playing youth in this IKEA commercial, as uncovered by Mr. Smith.

A toddler gets pulled out of a Yunnan well here, while a toddler is seen in a funny posture at Raffles Mall here. Beijingers: watch where you walk, lest you want to be boiled alive, and for the love of civility, expats, Scott Grow tells you to not piss in the streets.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Just click on the below tag "Ask Alessandro" if you have no idea what this means. As announced this afternoon on Beijing Cream, Alessandro -- the man, the myth, the legend -- will be making a joint appearance on BJC and China Daily Show next week:

Like many continental men, Alessandro will often greet other males with a kiss on each cheek, but he rarely relishes itThe sunglasses? They’re Fottore-BansDid you know? Prickly pears are 30% less prickly in Alessandro’s presenceIf Alessandro was an interrogator, your crotch would talk

Alessandro is now accepting questions. Please send to cds@chinadailyshow.com.

Have you heard? The taxi fuel surcharge is now 3 yuan. Also, Beijing is home to both the men’s and women’s champions of Chinese basketball. You can watch the Ducks’ gripping Game 5 series-clinching win in its entirety — plus other postgame videos – here. It almost makes one forget how classless the Guangdong Southern Tigers were, starting with its boss, Liu Hongjiang, who inexplicably ordered a human flesh engine search on a Beijing fan that ended up hurting an innocent woman.

Sina and QQ Weibo were ordered to shut down their commenting feature for three days for not censoring their users more closely. Meanwhile, China’s crusade against “illicit content” on the Internet has led to its newest campaign, Spring Breeze.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The CBA took the limelight as Game 1 of the finals opened at Wukesong on Wednesday. Our post about national-team player Zhou Peng intentionally fouling Stephon Marbury -- followed by Su Wei cursing him out -- is now the most viewed post in BJC history by a huge margin, thanks to Deadspin. The Youku video then got censored. Earlier in the week, we posted two final thoughts on Beijing's win vs. Shanxi: Marbury's tears of joy, and two monstrous dunks.

Monday, March 19, 2012

This site will now be used almost exclusively to promote Beijing Cream, unless I have something personal I want to say that is China-related and doesn't belong on BJC. Hope that's okay.

THE SITUATION IS EXCELLENT

March 12 - March 18

This past week yielded the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 most-viewed posts in BJC history: a kid kicking another in the face on a soccer pitch; Stephon Marbury accused of hitting a fan after Game 4 in the CBA semifinals in Shanxi (eventually linked by the New York Times' The Lede blog); and a comic strip on the day of Bo Xilai's ouster as Chongqing Party Secretary (h/t Valentina Luo).

Mike Daisey should apologize to Ira Glass, Stephen Fry, Tim Worstall, David Pogue and everyone who has bought a ticket to his show, though he probably won't. A Chinese guy's cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" is quite good. Sing with me now: the very model of a modern major general.

Welcome to Tyler Roney, Beijing Cream's newest contributor, who previewed Frenchman Nicolas Anelka's debut in the Chinese Super League. After the game, I compiled a video of all his touches on the ball, plus the game's five goals -- three for Guoan, of course. We don't really hate Shanghai, but it's sure fun to do so. Speaking of fun, this woman almost looks she's enjoying her pole dance on the Shanghai subway. Almost.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

This increasingly popular quiz is, unsurprisingly given the restaurant’s clientele, quite heavily American-biased, although enough questions based on China and a few other countries are thrown in to mean that non-Americans needn’t completely sink. The popularity of the quiz does mean that arriving early is a must, and if you’re clever you’ll be there soon enough to order a giant pizza and salads to share between you – it’s extremely unlikely that you will under order.

Monday, February 20, 2012

I'm of the opinion that James Fallows is still one of the best China correspondents out there, even though he's been off the China beat for a while (I might be biased -- he does, after all, have his own tag on this blog). This comes slightly belated (from last Wednesday):

But let's go to the videos! It happens that there is a test case available: the millions of actual Asian people who play basketball -- it's very popular throughout the region -- and the thousands who have played in professional or semi-pro leagues in China itself. These are real living-in-Asia Asians, without the diluting effect the immigrant experience might have brought to their "philosophical heritage." Overall do they play ball in a way the sociologists might predict?

Unt-uh. Here's one video, of the Dongguan Leopards playing at Shanxi Zhongyu, in a Chinese league. This features Stephon Marbury playing for Shanxi, one of a steady trickle of NBA stars who extend their careers with a contract in China. The first minute or so is the local equivalent of dancing Laker-girls. Some of the rest features crowd agitation, yelling at refs, general tumult, and some basketball. Virtually none of it fits with treatises on Asian "philosophical heritage" -- even though nearly every person you see on screen (apart from Marbury and a few other foreign players) is theoretically part of this tradition.

Your Xi Jinping article of the week: "It was here in the village of Liangjiahe that Xi Jinping (pronounced shee jin ping) spent seven of his most formative years after being sent into the countryside at the age of 15 along with millions of other students during Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. // And it was here, while digging ditches and extracting methane from pig waste, that he made the decision to pursue a political career—despite the persecution of his own father, Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary hero purged and imprisoned by Chairman Mao.... Elsewhere, however, a handful of Mr. Xi's family friends were willing to discuss his past, on condition of anonymity, and they all pointed to his time in the countryside as a turning point in his life—and the origin of his political ambitions." [Wall Street Journal]

Your Jeremy Lin story of the day, properly placed beneath Xi Jingping: "Most fans appear to have readily claimed Lin as Chinese, though some have taken note of the fact that he is American-born, with parents from the breakaway island of Taiwan. As one commentator put it: 'Do Africans jump up to claim Kobe as one of their countrymen?'" [Evan Osnos]

In case you forgot, some media organizations made huge asses of themselves recently by reporting on a ridiculous tweet. "Jaundiced irony is hardly a monopoly of the Western press when covering North Korea, but some of the analysis of the Kim Jong-un rumors was, frankly, a little embarrassing. Gawker, Huffington Post and Reuters, all weighed in, sometimes inexplicably relying on unedited Google translations. Apparently content with the 'Babel,' no one bothered to check or cite the North Korean state organ, the Rodong Sinmun (the newspaper does, after all, have a website). On the day he was supposedly killed, Kim Jong-un was on the website’s front page – he had received a gift from Kuwait – although there was no clear evidence he was actually there for the event." [Adam Cathcart, The Diplomat]

Chinese students in America. "While it has been a few weeks since Dan at CLB posted his article (and I posted my response) about commonly held stereotypes held by American students of their Chinese cohorts on campus, I thought I would post a part two as I cam across a couple of interesting articles that offered more insights into the complexity of the issue.. as well as the Chinese student perspective." [All Roads Lead to China]

Eric Abrahamsen, master translator. "Jackie Chan’s unfortunate 2009 statement that “Chinese people need to be controlled” sounds a little different when you consider that in Chinese he used the term guǎn rather than the word for “control” (控制, kòngzhì). Instead of advocating a police state, he was implying that the Chinese people need to be told what to do because they don’t know what’s best for them. Only marginally less distasteful a comment, perhaps; still, the distinction is worth making." [Latitude, International Herald Tribune]

For those who want a rundown of this whole Wang Lijun escapade: C. Custer has you covered. [China Geeks]

Corollary: Wang's (fake?) open letter via sociologist Li Yinhe begins: "When everyone sees this letter, I’ll either be dead or have lost my freedom. I want to explain to the whole world the reasons behind my actions. In short: I don’t want to see the Party’s biggest hypocrite Bo Xilai carry on performing: When such evil officials ruling the state, it will lead to calamity for China and disaster for our nation." [Danwei]

You had me at "Cormac McCarthy": "Some 20 million people lost their lives, many of them in grotesque ways. There are enough beheadings, flayings, rapes, suicides, disembowelments, mass killings and acts of cannibalism in 'Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom' — more about these things in a moment — that it can seem like a version of Sun Tzu’s 'Art of War' spat into being by Cormac McCarthy." [NY Times]

This month in history, and such. "Westerners still tend to underestimate Chinese military prowess, viewing China as a historically peaceful nation frequently invaded by bellicose neighbors: Huns, Mongols, Manchus, and, of course, Japanese. During World War II, U.S. and British propaganda strengthened this image by depicting China as a hapless victim of a modernized, assertive, and militarily effective Japan. // Most westerners even believe that the Chinese invented gunpowder but never used it in weapons, reserving it for fireworks. In fact, the first guns were developed in China, as were the first cannons, rockets, grenades, and land mines." [The Diplomat]

Well, if you need a reminder that in this city of ours they tear shit down, Jonathan Kaiman is here. "The demolition of Beijing's historical courtyard alleyways, called hutong, has long been one of the city's most controversial issues. At the height of the city's headlong rush to modernity in the 1990s, about 600 hutong were destroyed each year, displacing an estimated 500,000 residents. Seemingly overnight, the city was transformed from a warren of Ming dynasty-era neighborhoods into an ultramodern urban sprawl, pocked with gleaming office towers and traversed by eight-lane highways." [The Atlantic]

Your Jeremy Lin reads of the day:Deadspin, China Smack, Yahoo. Also from Deadspin: "What appears to be New York Knicks superstar Jeremy Lin's Xanga—chinkballa88.xanga.com, naturally—popped up on Reddit earlier this week, but somehow we missed it, and now it's password-protected. Drat."

Rupert Hoogewerf on China's super rich: "...the second thing is that these people are sending their children to study overseas. This is a phenomenon that's unbelievable. We estimate that 85 per cent of the millionaire class in China are now thinking of sending their children to study in, it's America, UK, Australia, Canada are the big four." [Shanghaiist]

NON-CHINA READ: Because no doubt you will have found James Fallows's analysis of Obama's presidency through other means, I present you this: "The injections came without warning or explanation. As a low-ranking soldier in the Guatemalan army in 1948, Federico Ramos was preparing for weekend leave one Friday when he was ordered to report to a clinic run by US doctors. // Ramos walked to the medical station, where he was given an injection in his right arm and told to return for another after his leave. As compensation, Ramos's commanding officer gave him a few coins to spend on prostitutes. The same thing happened several times during the early months of Ramos's two years of military service. He believes that the doctors were deliberately infecting him with venereal disease." [Nature]

It's been, like, four hours since credible news sources with -- I think -- better things to do reported that Kim Jong Un isn't, as Weibo (FUCKING CHINESE TWITTER) reported pulled out of its ass, dead. And it's been like eleven hours since someone decided they'd troll the world because journalists can be fucking stupid sometimes. So what of it? Is Kim Jong Un, North Korea's supreme leader, STILL alive?

The game was on BTV this morning, with the Chinese commentators conducting themselves pretty well. Someone remarked that if this had been 10 years ago, Lin Shuhao could have shared the stage with Yao Ming.

With five seconds to go, Lin misses the first of two free throws, causing one commentator to groan. (The Chinese commentators, sitting at a desk in the studio and watching the game on laptops, go for a "I'm a friend in your living room" vibe, except they are completely pedantic most of the time. It's quite the contrast with American broadcasts.) "If we were at Madison Square Garden, they'd be chanting MVP," he notes by way of contrasting the crowd reaction in Minneapolis.

"He can still be a hero if he makes this," the other says.

He makes it.

With the Knicks up one, the commentators debate who should get the ball for the Timberwolves. One says he'd let Ricky Rubio have it because they're priming him, and last-second opportunities are hard to come by; one says he would not give it to Rubio.

The rookie bounces it off his foot and out of bounds.

The Knicks win again. Jeremy Lin had an average game at best -- the commentators kept noting he looked tired -- but let it be noted that he scored his team's go-ahead point after getting fouled while going hard to the basket.

Eventually we'll quit these updates and just let the kid be a basketball player. Let's say we start when the Knicks get off this incredible roll they're on.